These presentations offer a global view of
Goddess traditions.

Each title is a
full-length
slide talk.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Goddess Cosmologies

"I am that which is, which will be, and which has been.
None ever uplifted my veil. The fruit which I brought forth was the sun.
---Kemetic inscription at the Temple of Neit, Sais, Egypt

"I am the form of the immensity. From me the world arises as Nature and as Person." ---Devi Upanishad, India

"Long ago Ts'its'tcs'inako finished everything, thoughts and the names of everything here on earth, and she also finished all the different languages." ---Laguna Pueblo creation account

Mother Essence, Divine Law: Maat, Tao, Wyrd, Nyame.
Life symbols. Cosmic maps. Grandmother Spider.
Female creators who mold humans from clay, or from their own flesh.
The Fates and the Seventh Nummo: spinners-into-being.
Suns, stars, moons; heaven and earth: immanent spirit and natural philosophies.
Goddess Cosmologies explores the wisdom encoded in Kongo gourds, Australian bark-paintings, Lithuanian distaffs, Ohioan stone tablets, Chinese bronzes, Mexican murals...

 

Icons of the Matrix

If ancient ceramics are the rich scriptures of “prehistoric” culture,
its icons are sculptures in stone, clay and bone. This sacred art shows deep continuities across time and space: matrikas (“female figurines”), vulva stones and ancestral megaliths, breastpots and female effigy vessels. These recurrent sacred signs span history from the oldest archaeological finds to living indigenous cultures.

A thoroughly global exploration of the oldest human spiritual heritage.

 

 

Mother Earth

Suspended over the Xiang and Jiang
Nü Gua's gauzy skirt, a hundred feet long
Gives its color to the hills." -- Qin Dao-Yu, 9th century

Though a tree grow ever so high, the falling leaves return to the Earth. --Irish proverb

Life-giving Earth, immanent in mountains, stones, waters, and sacred caves of origin. Tortoises, labyrinths, and rock art. Coalticue, Kybele, Mesukkumik Okwi. The Three Grandmothers of the Semang. Ningui of the Shuar, Peru. Ganmu of the Mosuo, Yunnan. Cretan snake goddess. Ayyyhyt of the Yakut, Siberia. Sumerian water goddesses. Nana Buruku. Erce, Erce, Erce, Eorthan Modor.

 

Corn Mothers, Trees of Life

"Mother Corn caused movement. She gave life." --Pawnee tradition

"Wisdom is as a Tree of Life to all who lay hold of her..." -- Hebrew Bible

The grain goddess and her sacraments in America, Africa, Europe and Asia. Xilonen, Zaramama, Mae Posop, Devi Sri, Isis, Ceres. The Tree of Life: Iroko, Ceiba, Huluppu, Cedar, Birch. Vana Durga. Siberian World Tree. Serpents of the Tree, and the Snake-wielding Goddess.

 

 

Mother of Animals

As serpent, lioness, cow, goat, elephant, elk, sow, tiger, jaguar, wolf, bird, fish, seal, and bear. As life-giver, shapeshifter, shamanic initiator, and protector. Chimeras, sphinxes and cherubim, harpies, faery goddesses, bear mothers, and all manner of tusked and tailed beings.

 

 

Matrikas

"Mother womb, creator of destiny, queen of the earth mountain, queen who allots the fates, queen who bears, mother who opens the womb." -- ancient Iraqi invocation over clay pieces of the Seven Creating Women and Seven Childbearing Women

Matrikas ("Little Mothers"): the ubiquitous female figurine in clay, ivory, wood and stone, from the Paleolithic era to the 21st century: Nubia, India, Canaan, Ecuador, Iraq, Mexico, Kazakhstan, Ohio, Japan, Utah, Siberia, Ukraine, Anatolia, Chad, Argentina, Sulawesi, Kenya, Colombia, and Alaska.

 

Sacra Vulva

"Over the Yoni shines the sleeping Kundalini, fine as the lotus stalk's fiber/ She is the World-Bewilderer, gently covering the cowrie mouth by her own... She is the receptacle of the continuous stream of ambrosia which flows from the eternal bliss/ By her radiance it is that the whole of this universe and this cauldron is illumined."
-- Mahanirvana Tantra

Iconography of the vulva: life-force, sexuality and creative power. A planetary view of vulvas in archaic rock sanctuaries, sculptures, and paintings. Cowries. Sexual nectar. The "proud vulva": yonis, baubos, shiela-na-gigs. Uncovering the vulva as a gesture to ward off evil and danger, to drive away attackers -- and, in modern Nigeria and Kenya, to shame violators of human rights.

 

Mysteries of the Ancestors

Funeral rites, libations, mother-urns. Ancient megalithic womb-tombs.

 

The Great Goddess

Major national traditions: ancient Egypt, Canaan and Judah/Israel, Iraq, India, China, the Mississippi basin, Nigeria. Veneration of Isis and the Magna Mater Kybele spread as international Goddess religions. Nammu, Inanna, Ishtar. Corn Mothers, Spider Grandmoter, and sacred pipes in the Americas. Xi Wang Mu and the Dark Woman / Mysterious Female of Taoist mysticism. The female Orisha: Yemaya, Oshun, Oya... and the ancient Nana Buruku.

 

The Divine Female in Buddhism

Goddess as Boddhisattva: Tara, Kuan Yin, Miao Shan. The Thousand-Armed and the Dragon-Riding Guan Yin. Hariti in central Asia. Tibetan dakinis. Vajravarahi and Dorje Phagmo. Palden Lhamo and the Tenmas. Tantric adepts in China and the Himalayas. Nats of Thailand. Apsaras in Cambodia and Vietnam.

 

The Goddess Veiled

And not-so-veiled. Survival of the Female Divine in patriarchal and colonial society, in the disguise of apocryphal saints, faeries and madonnas. How Isis, Kybele, and Sophia persisted in Christianity. Shiela-na-gigs. The Shekhinah, Hand of Fatima, the Crescent and Star.

 

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